There is that old saying, “Every day is a new beginning!” which is just as inspiring as it is true, but did you know that every month we are offered a chance to begin anew as well?

This lesser known second chance is one that is gifted to us by our amazing universe every time that a new moon occurs, which is about every 28 – 30 days.

The new moon is an planetary(or astrological)moon phase that happens when the sun and moon become conjunct. This is also when a new lunar phase cycle begins.

Tomorrow, on July 2, 2019, at 3:16 p.m. EDT, a new moon in Cancer will occur – and with a solar eclipse! How exciting! Unfortunately, though, this occurrence will only be visible in South America – but that doesn’t mean that you can’t experience the healing and spiritual effects of the this event.

“A new moon teaches gradualness and deliberation and how one gives birth to oneself slowly. Patience with small details makes perfect a work, like the universe. – Rumi

Most people never pay much attention to our alignment with this energy force, but it is there for the taking if we’re open to receiving its offerings.

New moon events are prime times to set intentions, make life changes, start new goals or projects, etc. I, personally, like to think of these events as being special unconscious universal connections that help us to vibrate higher and grow spiritually.

If you’re wondering what to do during a new moon, and are interested in taking advantage of this celestial event I’ve listed a few simple ideas below.

Start a new venture.

Energy received from the new moon holds an abundance of possibility allowing you reap the rewards of the seeds you have sown in the form of set intentions prior to the new moon event. (It’s best to set intentions that will take place the day after the new moon – not on or before.)

For example, the new venture that I have set my intentions for is to successfully train for a 5k that I will be participating in this September. So, any training that I begin, in order for my intention to have the best chance for success, will begin on the day after the new moon.

You should also make sure that your intentions are as specific as possible. For instance, ” I want to complete the 5k in September in 35 minutes or less”, or ” I want to beat my score from last year’s 5k by 10 minutes.” The reason why you should be as clear as possible is because this helps the universe and divine intervention help you reach your specific goal without any ambiguity.

Start a healing ritual .

Thankfully, new moon energy is great for helping us learn to appreciate the calm after the storm or better yet, the light that brightens our days once again after the darkness ceases. A healing ritual can help you overcome grief, a job or relationship loss, or any other type of loss and it is as simple as drawing on divine intervention or the universe for comfort and solace. Being as specific as possible here is key as well. You might want to include, in your intention, when you would like to be healed; and note what what you would like to replace your loss or sadness with.

Create a sacred space.

A sacred space is an outdoor or indoor space that is created for the purpose of prayer, meditation, self-reflection or intention manifestation. Most sacred spaces are created within one’s home, and becomes a place that one uses to get away from everything or just commune with a higher power. It is a safe, quiet, comfortable space decorated with personally relaxing or soothing colors, preferred spiritual or religious relics, decorations and furnishings. Oftentimes a makeshift alter is also created within a sacred space and filled with candles, religious or spiritual beads, statues, crystals, rocks and other items that can help you connect with your higher power and enlist good positive healing energy.

I recently began working on creating a sacred space in my home. It isn’t quite where I would like it to be, but I will be working on it until it meets my satisfaction. Stay tuned for future updates on its progression – especially if you’d like some tips!

Candle lighting.

My tried and true… and my favorite means of preparing for a new moon is candle lighting. This method is done by lighting a candle, holding it in your hands and saying a prayer, mantra or asking your higher power to help you bring more love, happiness, gratitude, blessings and light into your life. It’s as easy as that. It is customary to let the candle go out on its own, but for safety’s sake… I would not do this. Please put the candle out in a safe manner once you have completed your candlelight new moon ritual.

I hope that you found this non-exhaustive list of new moon ritual ideas helpful, or at the very least interesting. Thank you for reading and Happy New Moon in Cancer!

I have a confession to make. I jumped the gun. About a month ago, I became so overwhelmed, (or should I say that I allowed myself to become so overwhelmed), that I almost gave up. I almost gave up on Salubrity and Soul. Yes, that would have been a terrible thing to do! Especially since (as anyone who has followed my story knows), I waited so long to start it. But, what’s even worse than that is I kept feeling that I would be letting not only myself down, but my son down as well.

So instead of giving up, I decided to just take a nice long break and get back to everything once I feel better prepared to add blogging; and all of the added social connecting that comes with it.

I wrote about “unplugging” once before in my blog post 10 Things A Digital Detox Can Do For You”, but for some reason this time I needed more than a little digital detox. I was burned out and needed something a little more serious. What I needed was a sabbatical – a blogger’s sabbatical. Which is not a real term to my knowledge, but I think it has a nice little ring to it – don’t you?

“Rest is not idle, is not wasteful. Sometimes rest is the most productive thing you can do for body and soul.”

– Erica Layne

I cannot deny that the holidays, memorial event planning, awareness projects, work, overcoming the surprises acknowledged after finally gaining closure after losing my son over a year ago and an unexpected health concern all took a huge toll on me. The writing was on the wall and all I had to do was make a decision.Was I going to try to control and conceal it? Or was I going to take my well-being into my own hands and handle it in a healthy way? The healthy route, obviously, attracted me more.

“Self-care isn’t always manicures, bubble baths & eating healthy food. Sometimes it’s forcing yourself to get out of bed take a shower and participate in life again.”

– Meredith Marple

I knew that there was really only one thing to do, which was to bring everything that I was doing to a grinding halt, and just immerse myself in a sea of self-care. What’s more healthy and wellness minded than that? To notice the signs of burnout and potential additional bereavement issues and then heed to them. To care for yourself when you need to.

There is no shame felt here. Just gratitude and grace. There is no guilt here either. Just a sizable amount of self-love and a sense of contentment. Knowing that in all of my struggles suffering and vulnerability, I still have the faith and courage to keep moving forward – even if that also means that I have to slow down a little bit as well.

On the humorous side, one great thing about this “sabbatical” is that I didn’t have to obtain permission to take it. My only requirement was to seek inspiration, offer myself patience with regard to writing, and to rest and take really good care of myself. Which I did by doing a lot of meditating, a lot of healing baths, nature walking, journaling and changing some of my eating habits.

“Be you, love you, All ways, always.”

Alexandra Elle

While the payoff for taking this “sabbatical” is that I have been able to apply greater focus on enhancing my skills and creativity, assess my needs for engagement and productivity;but in a much less frantic manner. That is a complete win-win in my eyes.

Taking a break isn’t a weakness. Neither is taking as many breaks as you need – especially when you are in the process of healing. It may be the only thing standing between your failure and your success; and at least a break will energize you a little better than any attempt to just continue pushing on through.

One of the things that happens to the bereaved right after losing someone is that we tend to seek out things that will help us fill our recent void. Our bodies begin to crave more rest, and a host of other things – one being great tasting foods. Grief often tends to cause our appetites to change; and while some will experience a loss of appetite, others may experience an increase in appetite as the need to gravitate towards foods that elicit a dopamine release from the brain cause us to feel all warm and fuzzy inside and completely comforted. This is all due to the stress that comes with grief, and just as with any other form of stress we may know of our own “go-to” foods that we find personally healing. In fact we can all probably conjure in our minds right this very moment, (I am sure), a dish or recipe that we know has the power to make us instantly happier at any given moment. For me it’s my Mom’s curried chicken recipe or just about anything with, garbanzo beans, dark leafy greens, avocado or Italian. Those foods always go straight to my soul and make everything better.

But, back to how grief either increases or decreases our appetite. In the days weeks and first few months after losing my son, I lost my appetite which resulted in my losing 12 lbs. Food was the farthest thing from my mind and I remember every time that I did eat, regardless of whether or not it was breakfast, lunch or dinner, I felt as though I was forcing myself to eat. I was forcing myself to eat, because I knew that eating something was the only way that I was going to have any energy to keep running back and forth to the hospital, plan a funeral service and take care of all of the lose ends and important tasks that must be taken care of after someone passes away.

Even though my appetite was not there I knew that I had to eat in order to stay somewhat healthy. Sadly, though, I found myself in a bit of a fast food whirlwind grabbing unhealthy, easy, non-nutritious foods to sustain myself which as you probably already guessed, left me feeling even more depleted.

Something had to change and I needed to find a way to get back to normalcy and start eating healthy again. So, I began by gradually increasing the days that I would cook healthy meals at home instead of eating out or grabbing fast food. Starting with two days a week at first, and eventually leading to making healthy home cooked meals 6 days a week – it took me 4 months to return to my usual healthy eating schedule.

One thing that made it easy to do was to cook in bulk so that we would have leftovers available, (either from the previous day or frozen), if something came up and I was unable to cook one day. Another trick that I used was to pre-make healthy juices, smoothies, vegetable and fruit plates, soups and salads and I kept them at hand so they were easy to grab from the refrigerator for a quick snack or lunch.

It is not uncommon for the grieved to receive food from friends and family after the funeral has passed, and this practice can be such a wonderful blessing when you are too emotionally and physically and weary to cook anything. I can’t stress enough how much helping the grieved in this way can mean the world anyone who has just lost someone. However, that is not something that we can rely on for the long haul.

Therefore, having and idea of how to implement a healthy meal plan and and what to include can be invaluable not just to the bereaved while adjusting to a new way of being, but it could also be helpful to anyone who might be feeling overworked, over stressed, just plain tired or for any reason.

During the spring and summer months we will usually feel satiated after eating just about anything light, but for a lot of people there is something about fall and winter that moves us toward craving comfort foods such as stews, hearty soups and casseroles. There is something about the cooler months that have us reaching for foods that warm our bodies as well as our hearts. The good thing is this, we don’t always have to abstain from enjoying those delicious comfort foods.

For example, one way to still eat them and avoid adding extra pounds, or eating unhealthy, is to change a recipe so that it becomes healthier, but still tastes great. This is what I did with my lasagne recipe when I stopped making it with meat and all of the extra, delicious, but unnecessary cheese. It is absolutely scrumptious! I will post a recipe for that lasagne this week in what will be Salubrity and Soul’s new recipe section, and it will also be posted on the Salubrity and Soul Instagram account.

If you have found yourself in the same unhealthy conundrum and feel the need to eat healthier after loss or just prefer eating a decent home meal try:

Asking friends and family for help with obtaining home cooked meals.

Creating your own home cooked meals by making larger amounts of precooked meals and either freezing them for later, or to enjoy as leftovers during the week.

Avoid fast-food by buying pre-packaged meals. Many of which can are now vegan, vegetarian, low-sodium or gluten free.

Make homemade soups, stews and casseroles in a crock pot or instant pot to save time and your energy.

Order food from a good restaurant instead of grabbing unhealthy fast food and have it delivered.

As you can see, there are several things that you can do to help ensure that you are eating as healthy as possible while dealing with loss, and I will have more tips and tricks for maintain your health while grieving in the coming weeks.

The words “I’m Blessed” is a phrase that I have used quite often in the past to express the way that I feel about all of the good and wonderful things that I have received and accomplished in my life. There is no harm in celebrating the good that occurs in our lives…right? However, one has to ask, does that change if we become a bit too zealous in our efforts to celebrate ourselves and we begin dismissing the misfortune of others? Does it change if all of the good that we receive changes us – and not for the better?

I stopped saying “I’m Blessed” a few years ago when I began a volunteer position working with foster youths helping to ensure that they were receiving proper care with regard to their health and well-being in their prospective foster homes. Just hearing those two words at the time would make me cringe whenever I heard them coming from my mouth or from the mouths of others. All of a sudden that little special phase began to seem shallow to me, and I just didn’t feel comfortable using it anymore.

Another reason why I stopped saying it was because I began to notice that there are a lot of people who do not have a “typical” family structure or a “typical” shot at some of the opportunities that others have. Not to mention having the “good fortune” of celebrating the holidays with their loved ones in many instances. I also began thinking about those who had lost their homes and loved ones in recent storms and natural disasters. Once all of this began to infiltrate my mind – well, it was a given that I, personally, no longer felt comfortable using that phrase.

Once I really began to pay attention to how common these issues are, I realized how egotistical I must have sounded to give myself so much praise and attention when I really didn’t need it – any of it – because I have enough. More than enough, even with all of my own personal struggles and imperfections. I still have enough, and I don’t need to tell anyone about my blessings because we’re all blessed in one way or another. As a result, it became more important for me to just appreciate my blessings and be thankful for them in silence and with grace.

I think the word “blessed” can sometimes be taken out of context to go beyond simply meaning “to be fortunate” or “lucky” and is often instead referred to as being something “more than“, being “highly favored” and exalted by a higher power which is often the result of performing some spectacular act, or just being successful or having a perfect family, appearance or life.

Once I began practicing gratitude as a way of celebrating myself and all of the things that I am fortunate to have or have experienced in my life, everything changed. For one thing, I can honestly say that I am now a more humble and open person and someone who is always conscious of what others may be going through. Now I count my blessings instead of professing that I am blessed. You and I – well – we are all blessed just for being; and we shouldn’t feel any obligation of having to have had accomplished something to receive those blessings. Besides, blessings often run out, while gratitude is often the gift that keeps giving; no matter what the situation. Speaking of giving… I hope that you will join me by still celebrating yourself, (in whatever way you need and prefer to), but by also remembering to always make an effort to try to be a blessing for someone else whenever possible. Blessings to everyone!

I know that you’re in there. I can sense it. Why do you diminish yourself? Can’t you see how luminous and exquisite you are? Like nebulae from an undiscovered galaxy.

Please don’t dim yourself. I want to experience your essence, so speak to me with uncommon explanations and words so true to you that when the words leave your mouth they drip from your lips like the juice from nectarous ripened fruit.

I want to breathe your reality and watch as your words float effortlessly from your soul to mine. I’m not going anywhere. I am listening. Now, show me who you really are.